What are white dwarf stars and how do they form???

Answer 1

They are the remaining core of a star that has used up all its nuclear fuel.

Answer 2

Tom Science is branching out from neutron stars (a little).

Basically, they are the hot ash left over after a small to medium size star such as our own Sol exhausts its hydrogen and helium fuels. The star is too small for further gravitational compression to ignite carbon fusion, so the mostly carbon/oxygen core just sits there and very gradually cools off. No more fusion to generate heat. Further gravitational collapse is prevented by the pressure of degenerate electrons (quantum mechanical effect).

If they perhaps made the mistake of forming in a binary system and then start stealing mass off their neighbor, they may become a source of nova eruptions, and eventually can go out with a big bang (type 1A SN).

If you wait around long enough to let one cool off, you might have the makings for one seriously over-sized wedding ring.

Answer 3

white dwarf star
Any of a class of small, faint stars representing the end point of the evolution of stars without enough mass to become neutron stars or black holes. Named for the white colour of the first ones discovered, they actually occur in a variety of colours depending on their temperature. They are extremely dense, typically containing the mass of the Sun within the volume of the Earth. White dwarfs have exhausted all their nuclear fuel and cannot produce heat by nuclear fusion to counteract their own gravity, which compresses the electrons and nuclei of their atoms until they prevent further gravitational contraction. When a white dwarf's reservoir of thermal energy is exhausted (after several billion years), it stops radiating and becomes a cold, inert stellar remnant, sometimes called a black dwarf. White dwarf stars are predicted to have an upper mass limit, known as the Chandrasekhar limit (see Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar), of about 1.4 times the Sun's mass. Dying stars that are more massive undergo a supernova explosion. As members of binary stars, white dwarf stars play an essential role in the outbursts of novas.

For more information on white dwarf star, visit Britannica.com.

Answer 4

A white dwarf is a star that has burned off all it's remaining energy and is much smaller than our sun.